Its foundations have disappeared, but architectural and sculptural elements found in the southern part of the Mycenaean wall of Acropolis of Athens have been assigned by scholars to this temple.

[1][4] In 1936 Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt's extensive research on the surviving fragments and sculptures proved that the pediments of the temple must have been larger than earlier presumed.

[1][5] Further research by William Bell Dinsmoor, Immo Beyer, and others, as well as historical correlations between the surviving fragments and the destruction of the Acropolis by the Persians in 480 BC have led to the current hypothesis that Hekatompedon was a hexastyle peripteral Doric temple with a 46-metre long crepidoma and that was located on the site of Parthenon.

The three bodies of the winged monster hold a wave, a flame and a bird and have intertwined snake tails, symbolizing the four natural elements, i.e. water, fire, air and earth, respectively.

The lioness has both female (breast) and male (mane) details, probably arising from the lack of knowledge of the Greek artists on these animals, which no longer populated Greece in the 6th century BC.

Other surviving sculptures include four horses and two panthers carved in relief, both from metopes of the temple, and a very fragmentary gorgon from the central akroterion.